Rain School

It's the first day of school. A group of children are walking to school, excited about the start of classes. They walk and walk and finally they arrive. There are no books. There are no desks. There is no school building. The teacher is there. ‘'We will build our school,” she says. “This is the first lesson.”'

What a moment. ‘”We will build our school,” she says. “This is the first lesson.”

The children live in the African county of Chad. The children have an excitement about learning that I don't see every day in my work in the schools in America. I feel the power of that excitement in these pages. It enables a group of children, led by a teacher, to build a place each year, from scratch, in which children can learn, knowing that, at the end of the school year, rains will come and the whole building and everything in it will be washed away by the heavy rain.

A moving story. Very powerful.